Agree about the left behind’s. The referendum was a simple choice between change and the status quo. If your life is pretty terrible, if your wages aren’t rising or if you’re homeless or stuck in a zero hours job with no prospect of buying a house, who on earth would ever vote for more of the same? I wish with all my heart that these people hadn’t voted leave, but I can’t say I blame them.

Interesting that, firstly, blue passports were the idea of the League of Nations, it wasn't our choice. Secondly, the EU never made us have the maroon ones, we chose to do so. And thirdly, we could have gone back to blue at any point, if we'd wanted.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/22/blue-passports-taking-back-control-imposed-league-of-nations-burgundy-passport-eu

My 24 yr old daughter tells me the same stuff. The way that well-educated young men feel able to treat well-educated young women in bars and clubs is appalling. When I was young and free (the 70s), if anybody I knew at university behaved like that to a woman he would have been shamed and humiliated. Is this progress? How has the way we treat women gone backwards so much in a few decades?

My wife and I haven't bought each other presents for about 15 years, since we were very hard up one year and decided to spend what money we had on our four chidren. They've all grown up now and two of them have children of their own. These days, we do a Secret Santa thing between us and the chidren, where you get allocated a couple or individual and spend approx £30 on them. That's the only present we'll buy this year - apart from stuff for the grandchildren and something for my sister.
I hate the commercialisation of Christmas.

My lab will also eat anything, but is especially partial to poo (cat, dog, rabbit, sheep, any poo in fact), apples, berries of all types, acorns, hazelnuts, wheat and grass. I don't know why I bother buying her food, actually.

The pay of the Bath VC pales into insignificance when compared with the £13 million pay-off that the CEO of the Stock Exchange is getting. The gap between the very rich and everybody else continues to widen in this country, and I think ordinary people are becoming increasingly miffed at it. I'm sure there isn't a French-style revolution on the horizon, but something certainly needs to change.

When I look at the huge debt my daughter has built up in becoming a teacher, it makes me furious. It also makes me think the present system is totally unsustainable. Surely kids will stop going to university and choose other options? One good outcome would be that all those student halls that have sprung up across our cities could be used to help solve the affordable housing crisis.

When our black lab had a cruciate op, we got one of these. It's strong and telescopic, and fits beneath the gunnels. In fact it takes up so little room that we haven't bothered taking it off the boat even though she now jumps up the stern ladder-stairs as she did before the op. Expensive but worth it, in our view:
https://www.easyanimal.co.uk/deluxe-telescopic-dog-ramp.html#.WhRIaUpl_IU

Nick Knight (world famous fashion photographer, just in case you don't read Vogue) took our wedding photos when he was about 19. They are awful.
Football manager Ron Atkinson once called me something I can't repeat here, on the phone.

Proper Charlie replied to American boater newbie's topic in New to Boating?

Don't judge a book (or a boat or a boater) by its cover, but take people as you find them. Most, but sadly not all, boaters are generous folk who will help you in any way they can. Some of the kindest people I've come across have been those that on dry land I would instinctively turn away from.